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Jen Hale Christy

Coach and Writer

jenhalechristy

What Yoga Is Teaching Me About How To Be Human

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I’m no stranger to the yoga jam… I’ve been practicing on and off for at least the last 15 years. But usually when I go to classes or watch videos, the teachers are…

well…

vanilla. They’re exactly what you’d expect–super chill and stretchy, a little woo-woo, and no monkey business. I just started a 30-day journey with an awesome guide named Adriene who is not your average yoga teacher. She’s quirky, down-to-earth, a little stream-of-consciousness-y, laid back; she sometimes talks in silly voices and laughs easily at herself. I think if we knew each other in real life, we’d be friends. Just sayin.

While I love a rockin Zumba class, cardio kickboxing, or even just a good old fashioned run, something in me has been craving the energy, elasticity, and calm that comes with practicing yoga. One of my 12-week goals this year involves regular exercise and so far, that’s meant daily yoga. Each morning when I roll out of bed, stretch out my mat, and queue up that day’s video, I find new insights and wisdom in a place rather unexpected for a Jesus-girl like myself.

Adriene asks me about my motives, encourages me to set my intention, and says to listen to my inner guide. In quieting the thinking mind, we’re able to listen more closely to what our body is saying–is something tight or tense? Is there something I’ve been carrying that I need to release? This practice is about bringing the body and mind back together—rejecting and resisting the mind-body duality that still plagues us so many years after Plato’s time.

And it’s reminding me that I’m a human being. Finite. With limitations. I need rest. I need to slow down. I need times of simply being. For me, these glorious 25-35 minutes each morning are just that.

The Wisdom of the I Am

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This morning, I was listening to Ya Hey by Vampire weekend. The chorus rattled around in my head all morning (“through the fire, through the flame, you won’t even say your name, only I Am that I Am”). At a worship service, the preacher mentioned our identity and how it’s not found in what we do. Although I’ve heard it and believed it for years–we are human beings, not human doings–in that moment it hit me between the eyes: we, too, are “I Am.”

Our “I Am” is rooted, grounded, found first, in the Great I Am. Of all the ways in which God could have referred to Godself, the term “I am” was chosen… not “I do” or “I make” or “I accomplish”… but “I am.” Even when this dude was insisting on a name–come on, how are they going to believe me? Give me your name… [I mean, it’s possible, even likely that Moses was begging for a name because that’s what you did back then–if you had a particular deity’s name, you could call on that deity and get them to do your bidding…but I digress.] God said nope. I Am that I Am. And this is our true identity as well. I am.

The essence of who we are is our being, not our doing. The one who created us in his and her image, the one who knew us and loved us before we were formed in our mothers’ wombs. Before our educations, careers, experiences, relationships, and histories defined us,… I Am. I Am gave us our identity and I Am is our identity. We are. I am. May we find our identity in God’s I am.

Healing Toxicity

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We live in stressful times. In January 2017, the American Psychological Association reported that Americans were feeling more stress in January than 6 months prior, and it’s no surprise that the majority of the stress was due to the political climate, the future of our nation, and the outcome of the presidential election. This was the biggest increase in stress level so far in the ten years that they have been tracking it.

Much of our current stress has to do with toxicity—it’s literally everywhere.

From pollutants in our air, to questionable ingredients in our food, to dangerous chemicals in our household cleaners, biological toxins seem inescapable.

From so-called fake news and dishonesty, to scandals and abuse, to school shootings and senseless violence, psychological toxins seem inescapable.

Toxic people and substances enter our spaces, drawing life and energy from us. They activate our stress responses, elevating our cortisol and making us more susceptible to diseases.

The beautiful news is that regardless of the source or type of toxin we are experiencing, there are simple remedies that don’t require dollars–just investing in ourselves and our community with open hearts.

  • We can identify and remove the things that are making us sick, rather than medicating the symptoms away.
  • We can take brain breaks, unplug from technology and news, and go for a hike in nature, practice yoga, or read a good novel.
  • We can set goals and actively pursue them, rather than just letting life happen to us.
  • We can choose to see the world as working for us, rather than against us.
  • We can let go of hurts, rather than allowing them to fester and eat away at us.
  • We can choose gratitude rather than excessive longing.
  • We can choose to give away, rather than endlessly accumulate.
  • We can engage creatively with the problems around us, rather than disconnecting, ignoring, or despairing.

There is Need of Only One Thing

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I’ve always considered myself a neat freak. As a young child I tried to implement a Saturday morning cleaning schedule for our family, with all of the chores assigned accordingly. No, it didn’t work. In grad school I was regularly teased for my excessive use of 409 and obsessive cleaning of my house. I took the teasing in stride because I was actually quite proud of my home’s cleanliness. Back then, I somehow found the time to balance work, school, a social life, and keep a home that would have impressed Mr. Clean.

Once I got married, I was faced with a truth I could no longer avoid: not everyone enjoys getting up early every Saturday and spending the first several hours of the morning cleaning the house from top to bottom. I say this not to criticize my wonderful husband, but to confess that in our marriage (as in most marriages, I have learned), household chores are a source of disagreement. But this article is not about chores or cleaning, it is about the pride and selfishness that fester beneath the surface. Sometimes I find myself so wrapped up in my tasks, whether they be dishes, laundry, cleaning, or picking up toys, that I neglect those closest to me. Every once in a while, I hear the quiet whisper, “Jen, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing…” Sometimes I become so driven to accomplish everything on my to-do list that I selfishly reject other things my family would like to do. I convince myself that I am doing the things necessary to keep the household running smoothly and until those things are finished, there is no time for play or relaxation. “…you are worried and distracted by many things…” And how dare anyone suggest that I sit down and read a book when there is so much work to be done?!

After we had our first child, several months went by where every few weeks, I would break down and say that I couldn’t do it all. I positioned myself as a martyr and felt sorry for myself that there wasn’t enough time in the day to do everything that needed to be done. “…there is need of only one thing…” At some point, it struck me that if I kept going like this, I was going to miss out on her childhood. Sure, I was home with her more than I was away from her, but I was so focused on getting things done that I didn’t spend enough time just interacting with her and enjoying her. I couldn’t just sit down with her while she was playing with toys, I had to be doing the dishes. Likewise in the evening, I couldn’t just sit down and watch a show with my husband, I had to be folding laundry so that I wasn’t ‘wasting time.’

Ten years later, things are only marginally better. Some days, I am able to force myself to sit down and play with the kids. Many evenings, I’m able to sit down and relax without doing anything ‘productive.’

When Jesus told Martha there was “need of only one thing,” he was referring to discipleship. He wasn’t discounting the importance of hospitality, but he was stressing the importance of sitting at the Master’s feet. In fact, there is much wisdom in the instruction that before engaging in ministry, we must first spend time at the feet of God. I’ve come to realize that I’ve been doing it all backwards, believing that I have to accomplish A, B, and C before I can allow myself to sit down and spend time in prayer, or reading God’s Word, or relaxing with my family, or something similarly pleasant. But would God care more about me having a clean home, or a clean heart? Would God rather the laundry be folded and put away, or that my children see me setting aside time to read the Bible? Thankfully we don’t always have to give up the good to achieve the better. But sometimes we do. And we can only choose what is better, the ‘one thing,’ when our priorities are properly aligned. And how do we arrange our priorities in a Godly way? I find that when I am truly open to hearing God’s voice, I hear it in lots of different places. I hear it in Scripture, I hear it through a speaker, I hear it in the voice of a friend, I hear it in a book, I hear it in Anna’s voice when she says “Mommy sit down. Mommy play.”

The Sun is Coming

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It is 32 degrees outside. It is not the first time I have felt the chill of 32 degrees on my skin, but this morning, gratitude overtook me. I find myself whispering prayers of gratitude for walls and doors and windows and roofs, for heaters and warm clothes and that I’m never cold for long. I’m noticing how much I take these things for granted. The light breaking through the once-darkened windows catches my eye, and I find myself unable to look away. With deep breaths, I try to inhale this scene into my very being–the beauty and the majesty of it all. I’m captivated by the picturesque view–the trees silhouetted against a brilliant sky of ever-lightening blue giving way to orange just above the rooftops as the sun declares that it is coming. With promises of warmth and light and life, the sun is coming. And we gather weekly to declare that the son has come and indeed is coming. His glorious light has been shone upon us and we are never the same again. What was once shrouded in darkness has now become visible. The frost begins to fade away and things–both lovely and unlovely–are revealed. And we call ourselves children of the light. What tempts us to return to the darkness? With the advent of the light, elements take shape and we cannot unsee them. We begin to see ourselves and our surroundings as they truly are. No longer can we fumble about, excusing our clumsiness by blaming the cloak of darkness. No longer can we feign unawareness over that which we have been hiding and denying all along. The son has come, and the light is marvelous and blinding. There are things best left in the shadows, we say; pieces of us we hide with a comb over and layers of makeup. But the beautiful message of the Gospel is that we bring our whole selves–our best features together with our trouble areas, our victories and our failures, the holy embodiments and the sinful indulgences–we bring it all to Jesus who washes it in his blood, purifying and cleansing every bit of us. The beauty of the Gospel is that we don’t have to have our act together–in fact, we have to admit that we don’t have our act together. And we don’t try to clean up or hide or diminish our impurities. We’re honest about them, made humble by them, loved in spite of and because of them. God already knows we’re imperfect, so let’s stop pretending to each other that we are. May we be a body that basks in the light; humbled by our imperfections, revealing our impurities and laying them bare for God’s healing work to be done.

(Originally written for the Westside Church of Christ blog)